I spent a few days last week and this on a writing retreat with my face-to-face critique group. We traveled out of state, to Cacapon State Park in West Virginia, and hunkered down for a few cold and rainy days in the mountains.
The cabin was beautiful with hardwood floors and paneling, a stone fireplace, and set in the rustic location of the woods.
It was modern enough to have a full kitchen – with microwave – as well as forced air heat (and cooling) if we needed it.
It was everything you could want in a home, and yet, it wasn’t home.
There’s nothing better to me, than arriving home after being away. (And I don’t care if it’s a vacation I’ve gone on, or a visit “home” to my folks’ house, or just being at work for a full day…I enjoy coming home.)
Home is safe.
It’s more comfortable than any other place. It’s got my things laid out just the way I like them.
It’s mine.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Write about coming home.
- Write about the old neighborhood.
- Write about something quirky in your house which drives you nuts, but you wouldn’t change.
- Write an essay: though I live ____________, my real home – my heart of homes – is ______________.
- Write a story where your character is homesick and can’t return home for a long while (if ever). How does he cope?
- If you journal, write about a time you were homesick. How did you feel? When were you able to go home? What did you do to alleviate the desire for home while you were gone?
- Write about:
- something in the closet (or the basement)
- knocking down walls (figuratively or literally)
- a room of your own
- Write about running away from home.
- Write about:
- moving out
- moving into your own apartment for the first time
- buying a new home
- losing your home
- Write about a world in which there are no homes left. How do people live? What if there were no space on top of the earth, so new apartment complexes are built down? What if the moon were able to be colonized and governments were offering homesteads to folks to move there?
Good luck!